The Look Off: Weeks 9-10
We know who's good, now.
I wish I knew for sure who was good.
This year’s seen nearly every franchise defy expectations—positively or negatively. Even the Chiefs managed to make their undefeated run feel weirdly … wrong. Detroit is good, maybe1. Washington has something figured out. But the rest of the league is swimming in a sea of uncertainty.
That should be good news for DFS players—at least, for the ones who play GPPs.
The Tape - Looking Back to Last Week
Baltimore answered a heap of questions pounding Denver into the ground. Denver, in turn, will have to answer questions of their own heading into Kansas City this week.
Miami looks like it might be back in play as a fantasy offense. The Jets indicated they weren’t to be written off. And the New York Giants actually made some strides despite the loss.
At this point, there’s a set of offenses we know will push and push to score points. Baltimore, Washington, and Buffalo pieces will always be priced accordingly, and they’ll be tough to get to in a tournament setting. Best bet, as a general rule, is to take a secondary option from one of those units and hope the plays break their way. Otherwise, you’ll have to have rock-solid salary saving options to afford Josh Allen stacks.
Here’s the complete overview, notice that the middle chart is an image, not an interactive embed. Not sure why the embedder isn’t playing nice this week.2
Game Buckets
Hoping for Variance
New England Patriots at Chicago Bears (Total: 38.5—Early Slate)
Tennessee Titans at Los Angeles Chargers (Total: 39—Late Slate)
Tournament Edge
Detroit Lions at Houston Texans (Total: 49.5—SNF)
Minnesota Vikings at Jacksonville Jaguars (Total: 43—Early Slate)
Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (Total: 43.5—Late Slate)
Buffalo Bills at Indianapolis Colts (Total: 46.5—Early Slate)
Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs (Total: 41.5—Early Slate)
Obviously Attractive
San Francisco 49rs at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Total: 50.5—Early Slate)
Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints (Total: 46.5—Early Slate)
Pittsburgh Steelers at Washington Commanders (Total: 44.5—Early Slate)
New York Jets at Arizona Cardinals (Total: 46—Late Slate)
Hoping for Variance
New England Patriots at Chicago Bears (Total: 38.5—Early Slate): New England has not scored more than thirty points with either their rookie or veteran quarterback. Chicago can beat up on bad teams, and there’s nothing wrong with taking their pieces in deep fields. But with so many questions surrounding New England’s ability to push the game, the reward for taking them needs to be large. That said—I find myself getting to Rome Odunze somewhat frequently.
Tennessee Titans at Los Angeles Chargers (Total: 39—Late Slate): The Los Angeles side of the ball is interesting here—while prices have caught up, J.K. Dobbins and Ladd McConkey have begun to emerge as consistent fantasy options. Tennessee’s defense has surrendered serious scores to strong offenses, and LA is at least “effective” at this stage of the season. The Titans two viable pieces are Calvin Ridley and Tony Pollard, but it’s hard to get excited about either one. LA probably gets left behind on your lineup unless you want the salary saving with Justin Herbert.
Tournament Edge
Detroit Lions at Houston Texans (Total: 49.5—SNF): This total feels like a trap. Hearkening to the New England/Chicago segment above, Houston also struggles to clear thirty points, accomplishing the feat once this season. Detroit has posted some gaudy numbers, but many of those performances are puffed up by defensive and special teams outliers. There’s a real chance this game devolves into a gutting, gritty, who-has-the-ball-last affair. On top of that floor, Lion’s pieces are tough to stack. Amon-Ra St. Brown is a viable one-off if you want a slice of the game, though. On the Houston side, Nico Collins has some of the year’s best expected points numbers when he’s playing. Getting to C.J. Stroud feels like too big of an ask, given this year’s evidence.
Despite the misgivings about the spot—the total commands some respect and mandates this game qualify at least for this bucket.
Minnesota Vikings at Jacksonville Jaguars (Total: 43—Early Slate): This game is pretty similar to the one above. One high-flying franchise and one disappointment. The Jags are projected to be Trevor Lawrence-less, so push-back against the favorite is unlikely. Either stack the Vikings down the line, limit yourself to Justin Jefferson, or don’t touch this game at all. Or have fun with Mac Jones stacks—I’ll grab a few for deep fields.
Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys (Total: 43.5—Late Slate): Eagles stacks could be chalk when we see the flop after lock for the early slate. This game misses the “Obviously Attractive” bucket because the Eagles haven’t shown a Washington-esque desire to throttle their opponents—and it’s hard to imagine they don’t utterly control the game against the Cooper Rush-led Cowboys. Their middle-of-the-road Domination Rating doesn’t mean they won’t boatrace Dallas, there’s just not a lot of evidence supporting the thesis. Combine that with the prices on the Eagles players, and the odds of Philadelphia being the nuts shrink even more.
Don’t touch Dallas without Dak.
Buffalo Bills at Indianapolis Colts (Total: 46.5—Early Slate): Buffalo—whether or not they’re actually good—looks locked to smash Indianapolis. Unlike the Eagles, the Bills have shown the world they’ll continue to beat a dead horse and run up the score. All of the Bills pieces are in play and Khalil Shakir appears to be in an excellent spot, especially if Amari Cooper misses. On the Colts side, Josh Downs looks to benefit from Michael Pittman’s absence. Mo Alie-Cox is a punt at TE if you want to roster someone not named Taysom Hill in that spot. Flacco’s kicked up Cox’s target share. The Colts haven’t established a consistent offensive groove and the resulting floor on this game keeps it in this bucket.
Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs (Total: 41.5—Early Slate): This game probably remains a low-scoring affair, but if it takes off, it should take off in a big way. Denver’s posted big games and surely, the real Patrick Mahomes is in there somewhere. With DeAndre Hopkins on the field alongside No. 15, there’s a chance the offensive M.O. shifts back to the high-flying days. And if the Broncos can make the Chiefs keep up, the passing yards could start to rack up fast. Courtland Sutton and the Denver TEs (as punts) come into play. Like the Minnesota game, grab a bunch of pieces from this game or none—the mean outcome is a losing proposition in tournaments.
Obviously Attractive
Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints (Total: 46.5—Early Slate): The Saints downward spiral continues against a mostly resurgent Atlanta. All of the Atlanta pieces are in play, just be mindful of price. Taysom Hill will probably draw too much ownership, but is something of a salary saver given the lack of Saints weapons. Not going to overthink this spot.
Pittsburgh Steelers at Washington Commanders (Total: 44.5—Early Slate): This game’s got a low floor—either team could try to choke the other out on the ground given the rain. But both squads have flashed the ability to put up big points with their current signal callers. Consequently, I think you have to be comfortable playing Terry McLaurin, George Pickens, and new addition to the Steelers Mike Williams. And Russell Wilson might be an interesting way to get different at quarterback this week. Not sure this spot is game stack material, but in deeper fields it provides real edge. Rain is an
New York Jets at Arizona Cardinals (Total: 46—Late Slate): Like the Pittsburgh / Washington matchup, this game has some floor. New York is rested, and finally finding a smidge of footing. But they’ll need to play their best football yet in order to make this game a tournament-winning spot. Arizona has quietly accrued a respectable top-ten Domination Rating and their side of the ball feels very strong here. Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride are playable—the price just means you’ll have to scrounge elsewhere. The Jets pieces are more speculative, so I’d probably only want them as part of a game stack. The exception is Garret Wilson, whose one of the best players in the game in terms of expected fantasy points on pass plays.
San Francisco 49rs at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Total: 50.5—Early Slate): Both sides can put up points. Neither is sure to shutdown the other. Even without receivers, Baker Mayfield and crew brought a fight to Kansas City, an A-list defense. Don’t overthink this spot either. Pieces from both sides are usable, just mind the price.
The Chalkboard
With the games bucketed and analyzed, this next section walks through how the entire slate might play out
The idea here is not to issue a definitive statement about what will happen. Rather, the goal is to identify the most likely sets of combined outcomes, and parsing out how DFS players can build lineups to take advantage of those outcomes. In other words, we’re taking to the chalkboard, and scratching out some attack plans.
This analysis focuses heavily on tournament play. For example, game stacking, a technique discussed below, is rarely optimal in head-to-head type games. Just be mindful that all the sample lineups below are lineups built to finish in the 95th percentile or higher. Anything worse than that—it could be the bottom of the barrel for all I care.
Only a couple of scenarios to look at this week—the even split between the top and mid-level bucket makes it likely that one of two things will happen
Scenario 1: One of the Obviously Attractive Games Laps the Field
This scenario shows up pretty frequently—but there’s a reason game stacks tend to win big tournaments. The lineup here depends heavily on which game you want to attack, but here’s how you could approach San Francisco / Tampa Bay:
Scenario 2: No One Game Significantly Overperforms
In this scenario, most of the obviously attractive games score more points than the others, but a handful of tournament edge games result in higher scores. No special sauce here—the trick to winning a tournament is simply hitting the nuts stack and finding reasonable value to afford it. Might look something like this:
Final Thoughts
In some ways, this slate is fairly easy—plenty of good games, so just play good options. But in other ways, the lack of absolute standout spots makes finding leverage hard.
It does make for a good afternoon of RedZone watching—enjoy the Sunday!
Honestly, I’m not in love with Detroit at this point. I’d like to think I’ve been a Cowboys fan long enough to recognize an offense that struggles when they can’t dictate the entire game.
All data in this article comes from nflfastr.com. except for betting data, which comes from Action Network.